By Name--February 6, 2024

By Name--February 6, 2024

"But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.' When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' She turned and said to him, 'Rabbouni!' (which means Teacher)." [John 20:11-16]

What a difference it makes when Jesus calls you by name--it can feel like the difference between death and life.

I don't know that I've ever really thought about it that way in this story, since the obvious headline of this scene is "Jesus is risen from the dead!"  Usually we hear a story like this on Easter Sunday, and the rightful center of our attention is the Risen One and the empty tomb which could not hold him.  That's one of the things I really like about reflecting on stories like this at times that are out of our usual churchly routines--thinking about the nativity story in summertime, rather than at Christmas, or the resurrection story here in the depths of winter, and such.  We are better able to stop and listen for details we would have otherwise missed.

And when I stop and think about it, it really is striking that the moment the light goes on for Mary isn't when she first sees the empty tomb... or even when she sees the angels where Jesus' body had been laid back on Friday.  It's not even when she first lays eyes on Jesus, because even then (maybe in the still dim light before dawn, when details are hard to make out a distance) she doesn't realize to whom she is speaking.  No, the difference comes when Jesus shifts the way he calls her--no longer the generic, "Woman, why are you weeping?" but calling her by name, "Mary!"

It is when Jesus calls her by name that Mary herself comes to life again.

Of course, for Mary, it is at that moment she realizes the figure in the garden isn't the gardener after all (although there's a delightful line of N.T Wright's where he says that, since Jesus comes to fulfill the role of the first humans in the Garden of Eden story, "confusing him for the gardener is the right mistake to make,").  No, this isn't a stranger asking why she is sobbing in the graveyard--this is Jesus himself: the one whose body she expected to find behind the tomb's heavy stone.  By calling her by name, Jesus makes the resurrection not merely an abstract declaration but a personal reality.  Jesus has made the particular choice to appear to her (and, curiously enough, not to Simon Peter and the "beloved disciple", who had just been there a few verses earlier but went home scratching their heads), and he makes sure that she knows it is him.  In fact, Jesus has made the deliberate choice also to commission Mary to be the first to bring the news to others--she'll be the one in two more verses to go tell the disciples, "I have seen the Lord!" and preach the first Easter sermon!  All of that is Jesus' choice, choosing to breathe life into her dead hope, choosing to restore their relationship rather than leaving Mary in confusion or despair.  And when Mary runs from the tomb, on fire with good news, it will have been because she knows that Jesus really is alive again--he has called her by name, after all.

I suppose that's also why so many of us in the Christian tradition cling so passionately to similar words from the prophet Isaiah, who gives us God saying to a nation full of exiles, "I have called you by name, you are mine."  It's why we love the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who calls all his sheep by name, and of God as the one who calls each of the stars by name.  It's why we get excited to see an envelope in the mail with the address written out by hand with our actual names written on the outside, rather than a generic "Resident" label slapped on a bulk mailing.  We know something powerful happens when we are called by name--it means we aren't just placeholders, as if anybody would suffice to answer the calls.  It means we have been chosen, claimed, and identified.  To be called by our names is a way of honoring us and showing that we matter.  And, amazingly, the risen Christ is not too busy or preoccupied to call people by their names--he takes the time to call Mary by hers.  

He calls us by our own names, too.  In a way, Mary's story is for all of us--each of us is called by Jesus, both to assure us he is alive and chooses to renew relationship with us, but also to commission us to go and tell others... so that they can be drawn into the circle of Jesus' friends as well.  At our most despondent and broken-hearted moments, Jesus calls us by name and meets us there, right at the edge of the grave, and sends us out alive again.  And in a sense, the whole Christian life is really just a matter of training our ears to recognize Jesus' voice over the din of angry shouting, tv sales pitches and background noise to hear him call us by name and make his resurrection real for us.  Jesus' call doesn't merely prove that he is alive again; Jesus' call is what makes us alive.

Today, let's listen for the voice of the living Jesus, who calls to each of us by name and sends us out into the world as his witnesses.

Lord Jesus, like the hymn-writer put it once: call to us now, and we shall awaken--we shall arise at the sound of our name.